Knife Passed By O`hare X-ray

May 25, 1986|By Jerry Crimmins and Gabe Fuentes.

A Bulgarian ``drifter,`` who allegedly held a woman hostage aboard a jetliner at O`Hare International Airport, is believed by authorities to have carried a knife used in the attack in a bag through a routine security checkpoint.

Police identified the assailant as Georgi Jordanov Dinev, 24, a Bulgarian from Greece who has been in the U.S. since March 18. He was charged Saturday in a federal hearing with air piracy.

U.S. Magistrate Elaine Bucklo ordered Dinev held without bond in the Metropolitan Correction Center, pending a further hearing.

Leroy O`Shield, a city deputy commissioner of aviation and chief of security at O`Hare, said an ``initial investigation`` indicated that the suspect carried the knife in a bag that passed through an X-ray machine at the post that screens passengers passing into the gate areas.

Mort Edelstein, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the assailant then boarded the plane by bolting past security guards at the gate.

O`Shield said attendants at the X-ray machines and metal-detection devices are hired by private airlines and ``are looking for, basically, explosives and guns,`` and not knives. O`Shield said too many objects carried safely by many passengers--such as screwdrivers or hypodermic needles--can be used as weapons.

O`Shield said the Department of Aviation currently is reviewing ``total terminal security.``

Authorities said Dinev arrived at Gate L8 in Terminal 3, where a Swissair DC-10 was boarding for a nonstop flight to Zurich, after passing through the security checkpoints. Swissair officials said Dinev, who had no ticket, pushed past airline employees at the gate, ran onto the plane and seized the woman.

Using a folding fishing-type knife with a 6-inch blade, he held the woman, Ursula Michellod of Zurich, for 30 minutes.

O`Shield`s negotiations with Dinev, whose ``demand`` was to carry two

``anticommunist`` movie scripts to Switzerland, proved successful. Michellod, who received two small cuts on her hand, was released and continued on the flight to Zurich.

At the court hearing Saturday, Assistant U.S. Atty. William Spence told the magistrate that Dinev faced a minimum 20 years in prison and should be denied bond.

``The crime he is charged with is a crime of violence,`` Spence said.

``. . . The defendant has virtually no ties to Chicago. He has been in Chicago only a few days. He is a Bulgarian citizen traveling on a Greek passport and has no known address in Chicago.``

Spence and FBI agent Carl Davidson said outside the courtroom that Dinev was a ``drifter`` and a ``strident anticommunist.`` They said Dinev had come by bus to Chicago from the Washington area, where the Bulgarian had arrived from Greece in March.